Give us all the storybook told me - the faith and the glory, till my kingdom comes

Her sister's return had bolstered her spirits, though much was still left shrouded in uncertainty. So much time had passed since they'd last spoken, much less spent time together. There was a lot left unspoken, things they needed to talk about, wrongs they both needed to right...but Hotaru had a kingdom to run, and Raeden had made no allegiance to the Aurora Basin. Things were still confusingly up in the air, and she'd had no time to seek out her twin and simply...talk. Were they even capable of such civility any longer? Where had Raeden gone, and why? Had she been driven away by Hotaru's cruelty? A part of her was still bitter about that meeting, something else that needed to be confronted and then buried if they were to try and become real sisters again. 

And how was she supposed to tell her twin, her big sister who had loved Phaedra longer than Hotaru had (though perhaps not as passionately, in some ways) that their parents were dead? Hotaru, at least, had lived in the Basin with their father. Raeden had never even met him. How could she explain? She'd need to take Raeden to their parent's intertwined trees, try to explain her own involvement, how she still loved the goddess that had killed them...

Her tumultuous emotions had led to Alice whining and herding her away from the borders after switching off patrols, the pair wandering into the barren mountain shelves alone. They conversed in silence, their bond alive and thrumming, Alice's suggestion bouncing across the wavelengths in childish words and phrases. Hotaru's magic was still knew and unknown to her, and if it would at all help center her emotions...perhaps practice would make perfect. Or at least wear her out enough to sleep at night, instead of being plagued with the returning images of her parents' mutilated bodies and Stella's dying cry. 

Hurricanes were destructive, was the first somewhat awed and gleeful thought she had. The winds were violent, Alice pressed firmly against her legs as they swayed and were buffeted by them. Not close enough for the sharp blades within the hurricane to touch their skin, but close enough. It ripped through the snow and tundra, until Hotaru let the magic seep away and the hold loosen, where it tilted wildly before finally dispersing. Better? Alice asked from her side, not moving away despite the tornado having disappeared. Yes. Thank you. She only got a pulse of love and smug pride from the hellbitch. 

Here,
I prepare my body for you:
a toy, some trifling aspect of
the sins you wouldn't have it for.

Take it,
before I am gone.
Destroy me someplace quiet.



It had been a long time since the Haruspex had allowed himself to cry, but upon returning from the Goddess of the Moon, he allowed himself this outburst. Lochan was sent home, immediately. The haruspex could not face those white eyes, so sure of everything that they saw and yet so free of judgement. His own coal ones dripped with wet.

And it wasn't because he was scared, really. And it wasn't because he was finally feeling the emotions he had kept locked within him to make room for the problems of others, no. It was some sort of instinct he couldn't understand. He came home to the Basin from his talk with the Goddess of the Moon, and though he did not know why, he could not stop the tears.

The only solution he could find would be to walk. And so he did, far from his cave along the lake and the wide shadow of the sentinels--far from everything he knew and understood. In the steady light of now dawned day he climbed mountain shelves.

He wanted to look down on the world, if only to understand that he had no power over it.

But as he made his ascent, he saw winds stir in sudden storms along a shelf too high for him. It looked deadly in a way he had never seen before, but the urge to thrust himself into its chaos and dry his tears with its rushing air was quelled by the reminder of his new and painful task. No, he had to save his body for the pain of magic.

So Ashamin stuck close to the mountainside, a shelf coming out over his for once nearly bare form (natural save for the coils he always wore and an amulet on the chain of the false god's blue fang) and casting a shadow over him. Only when the storm subsided did he pull his weary body further up the mountain. What he saw, standing before the last of the settling winds with her trusty companion, was Hotaru.

It was too late to stop crying, and to see the lady before him was no help. Old and complicated feelings arose in his breast--cold encounters and intimate ones haunted him. The red lady of winter, the woman of storms, had been the cause of this magic. And though perhaps she had already hurt him too much without knowing--perhaps he had already let himself think more of nothing, dwell upon fleeting and meaningless moments--she apparently had exactly the kind of power that he needed.

His face was still tear stained--the distance between them close enough that she might even be able to see the wet marks. His coal eyes were still brimming and wet. He felt his own heart beating with pain and he listened for hers; in vain, he hoped to find a rhythm that matched his own.

"Hotaru," he breathed with a puff of white air and a shudder through his bones. No title, no formality. Not for all he had thought and wondered in desperate, hopeless hope. Just Hotaru.

He watched the last of the magic settle and the destruction it had caused in the surroundings--small chips of rock cut from the mountainside, little pebbles tumbling down, maybe threatening avalanche. He let his teary eyes look for hers, even as he still sought out her heartbeat.

"Hotaru, I need your help."



""

ASHAMIN

Give us all the storybook told me - the faith and the glory, till my kingdom comes

Asha. Hotaru had the wind in her ears and destruction in her marrow, could not hear, think, breathe beyond the horror she had conjured. Her flanks were damp and shining in the pale grey light, sinking and expanding with her breaths. And yet her heart remained steady, pounding like war drums in the blood of her ears until the wind and her own body created a tempo she almost wantd to dance to. Alice's voice cut through it all, and at last Hotaru could hear the clattering of hooves racing towards her. Would have spun to face the intruder, horn and magic at the ready, if Alice had not labeled the intruder by name before she even had the chance. 

Still she turned, ears pricked and eyes bright with awe at her own abilities. Until they fell upon tear stained cheeks, a tender mouth that croaked her name, eyes wild beneath the pale of his face. Her heart stuttered, tripping and speeding in her chest to see him so distraught, and instinctively turned fully to face him as panic swept over her. He was her friend, perhaps her only friend. What beautiful bird has been struck from the sky to make you cry this way, my friend? "Ashamin?" It came tripping out of her mouth like a bemused benediction, legs already carrying her instinctively towards him as Alice paced at her side. Help, heal, protect, the urges kept telling her, heart skittering like skipping stones against the pool of her soul. 

And he was there, croaking his request, one she couldn't deny even if the gods had commanded it. "Of course," she answered before the words had barely left his tongue, for there had never been any other answer. Stepped closer and extended her muzzle, naked worry on her pretty face. "What's wrong? What can I do?" She had so much at her disposal, surely it would be enough to lift him from the pit of his anguish. She could save him, if only he would grasp her hand, sacrifice what meager pride he may have in her presence and allow her to aid him. She would purify him, just as he had kept silent vigil over her own tear-stained reckoning and let her bleed herself clean in the safety of his presence. 

Her touch was as reassuring as her heartbeat. Both calmed him, both drew him closer to her. Ashamin wanted to just listen--to fall at her feet and allow himself to be broken. But he couldn't be broken, not yet.

She hadn't even lifted a finger. She hadn't even stirred up the storm. He needed to ask her a favor, and that favor was this:

"I need you to hurt me," he asked, hollow. He pulled his face away, let her heartbeat fill his ears and let his own slide into her being. Would she understand his seriousness if she could hear it? Maybe, maybe not. But he sent it to her anyway. He needed her to know. Know how, but not why.

"I saw your storm. At the fight with the gods, I saw your electricity. Strike me with them, and don't ask me why." He tried to meet her gaze, tried to make her understand. Surely she would object, surely... but he had to try.

Suddenly, he remembered the herbs he'd taken from Tiamat so long ago, nestled in the folds of his sarong for safe keeping. "I have herbs in my cave. I'll be fine in the end, you can take me there if you want to be sure. But for now, I need this favor."

He stepped back, stood before her, and shut his still wet eyes. Don't ask questions he prayed. Just help me.

Ashamin looked down at his chest, at the amulets there, and thought of how they had redirected Isopia's magic when he had not commanded it to. Two storms. Two bursts of whatever magic she would use to hurt him like he needed. He would need two, before he could fulfill the Moon Goddess' attack.

Bold, hurting, and desperate, he searched deep for her heart in her eyes and felt the rhythm that the storm had given her: something you could dance to.

But he didn't want to dance.





""

ASHAMIN

Give us all the storybook told me - the faith and the glory, till my kingdom comes

Hotaru paced forward just as surely as Ashamin, a paralleled dance. She would not press any closer than he deigned to move forth himself, but she would match him for every step and inch consumed between them. She was unaware of what was really going on with his magic, if for the faint tingle and the echo in her ears that sounded so surely like a heart, but whose she could not tell. Her own was faster for fear for him, but she was lulled by the way his eyes slipped closed and his breath puffed sweetly against her own velveteen muzzle. He was familiar to her in ways no others had accomplished. Hotaru wanted so badly to confess that to him, but was unsure of how to go about it. She didn't even know what she felt for him, much less how to convey it properly without fumbling all over herself and destroying the exact precious threads that lay between their entangled hearts. 

It didn't matter what, anyway. Whatever he asked of her, she would grant. 

"I need you to hurt me." Except that. Her soul and her body recoiled in tandem, rearing back and staring at him with blown eyes and slack lips, ears falling to the wayside in her immediate instinctive denial of his request. Before she could even conjure an answer, stumble her way through a question, he was forging forward with more words. Her magic? It sizzled lovingly in her blood as if knowing he was speaking of it, called forth by his enchanting voice. Whatever fears she had he tried to soothe by saying he had herbs and remedies, things with which to heal himself with. It didn't matter to Hotaru that he could heal himself, for he thrust himself headlong into countless spars with the Basin inhabitants. What mattered was that the burns and lacerations he would have to heal would be caused by her.

He backed away from her and she stumbled after him, eyes begging him not to make her do this because her mouth and throat still refused to work on her behalf. But his desperation resonated inside of her. It was an expression she knew, one that she had experienced as well. What have you done, Ashamin? Her eyes glistened with unwanted tears, ones she would have killed herself to conceal were she in anyone else's presence. Ashamin had already seen her at her weakest, there was nothing left for him to mock her for. But she needed one thing before she did this for him, and she surged forward to wrap her neck around his withers and squeeze him tight, her chest shuddering with locked-down moans of denial and agony. Why would you ask this of me? When you are my only friend?

"Forgive me," she whispered, her voice breaking in the middle. Until she retreated, knowing she would need the space to keep herself out of the line of fire and let the magic have the room it needed to manifest. She could not even afford to close her eyes, because accuracy was necessary for both of her magical abilities. She would have to watch as she injured the one man she had relearned how to trust, her only friend and confidant. Swallowing unevenly she summoned her electric magic, feeling the air grow tense and hot and watching as, from nothingness, a white-blue ball spiraled and flailed into being. Tendrils of electricity seemed to thrust themselves from the core, and she sent it flying towards him. It popped loudly, more of a bang, almost deafening as the electricity was sent screaming forth towards his skin to burn and shock. The sound concealed her singular sob, and Hotaru was already building up the winds of the smallest scale storm she could conjure, wondering if quick succession would somehow make it hurt less. 

The winds unsettled her, for she was far closer to it this time than when she'd been practicing on the mountain range a few minutes ago. Her hooves scrabbled at loose gravel and snow as it tore its way towards Ashamin, and she let her grip on it dissolve as it hit the halfway point. It was decomposing by the time it enveloped the Haruspex, the winds less fierce but the invisible blades just as vengeful as they sought to cut into his skin. Hotaru ripped her control completely away, commanding it to cease, and it spiraled upwards and broke apart into errant wind. Her tears were thick on her cheeks, but blessedly silent. And she let them form all over again, another ball rushing on his other side to explode with a sizzling bang, the storm summoned once more from the half-dead remnants of the previous one, racing towards him to cut into his skin as surely as it was cutting into her soul to do this to him. And when she thrust it out of being, she felt as if her own wounds were deeper, in the end.

The Lady rushed to him, Alice at her side, to check on the damage. "How bad is it? Should I get Enna?" It was all she could think to say, but it babbled free wetly from her lips, eyes glossy with her own self-hatred. It mattered little that she had granted his wish, not when it involved hurting him so. 

I have died
so many times

What harm can come
from just one more?



Hotaru was in pain. Ashamin understood this: the deep, emotional hurt that came with getting close to another. The both of them had been born with this knowledge. Born, raised, made to learn, something. But they both knew it now more than ever, more even than the night of Hotaru's confession came in the cave.

The knowledge was this: love always came with hurt.

So when Hotaru's body crashed into his he did not hesitate. He wrapped his neck over hers, he let her weep and take whatever little comfort in him that she could. This would be the last moment like this, for them. The last moment before the day that she tore her friend to pieces and watched him bleed; the last moment before he was ignorant of her real power.

When at last she drew away, whispering what were truly sweet nothings, Ashamin stood in patient wait. There was nothing he could do to prepare himself, nothing he could do to shield his body from the pain. He stood tall before her, chest forward and eyes open for as long as he could bear to keep them. But when the first crackle sounded they were shut tight to keep him in place. Somehow, Ashamin knew that he would have run at the sight of such power headed towards him.

When the lightning ball struck, it hit Ashamin squarely in the chest. What was left was a burned mark with veiny edges and bloody, red flesh. The skin was torn, the body was covered in tiny shocks that sent him into uncontrollable convulsive shock. He fell to the earth as if the ball had been a bullet, shuddered there in the snow and could do nothing to save himself. This was his punishment, his task, his pain he would make himself bear. Not just, now, for the promise he had made to the Goddess of the Moon. He would take the pain for the promise he would soon break to himself: the promise to hurt no member of his herd--to use his power for good.

By the time the storm began to rise, Ashamin had managed only to pull his face to his chest. He still shook, still bled, still felt as if his very bones had shattered and re-connected incorrectly in a moment. He watched, helpless, as the winds first picked up a few pebbles, then more. When the razor sharp edges of the storm met his flesh his sides were shredded, covered in long, red lacerations that bled freely and without shame. None of this was shameful. Perhaps he would die, perhaps he would go out as a fool for taking the harder path and be laughed at by the Gods, but he would die with what little honor he had left to cling to.

When he heard the second crackle, felt the second wave of the winds, he wanted to tell her to stop. But his voice was lost from the shock that had climbed up his throat, his senses overwhelmed. He stared ahead with eyes stuck wide, watched her at an angle with the ground taking up half of his view. He had withstood the attacks; as if sensing this, as if understanding that there need be no more, two of the amulets around his neck soaked up her second round of magic. Had she seen the charms, thought of them? Ashamin didn't have the energy to wonder if that was her gift to him, her apology.

But he didn't know, either, if he'd ever have the strength to use such destructive powers as hers. Certainly he did not now, as he slowly struggled and failed to get back on his feet. His breath came in heavy gasps, his eyes rolled and showed their rare whites before settling into normalcy again. Alice and Hotaru stood before him like distant shadows, with garbled words but clear sentiments.

Through tears that electricity had forced from his eyes, Ashamin somehow gave his lady a pained smile. Surely she'd draw closer, the dust would settle, and she'd panic. Surely she'd get help, he didn't need to ask for these things. So he simply focused on lifting his head, on trying to touch his nose to whatever part of the shaded lady was nearest. "Nothing... I can't... withstand."

""

ASHAMIN

Give us all the storybook told me - the faith and the glory, till my kingdom comes

Hotaru knew the glint of an amulet even from the distance between them. If she could offer him a single platitude, the only gift she had to give that he could in any way appreciate it, she would sacrifice it. No matter how the sweat collected on her body, how her heart seemed to shred itself with a unanimous self-hatred that would take weeks to crawl out of her bones and stop plaguing her. His pain was so evident, so distinct and profound that all she wanted was to look away. Even so she forced herself to watch, to bear witness to the atrocity she was committing – regardless of whether he’d begged her to or not. Hotaru had always been proud of her power, of the fact that she could bring men like Ashamin to their knees or rip pegasi from the sky with the force of her will. It was always a rush of pleasure and perverse excitement, for she had been weak and broken for so long. Was it not righteous retribution? Was she not deserving? But this…this was never what she had wanted.
 
Ashamin was no foe of hers, no conquest to tote proudly and then glance away from at herd meetings. For the Lady, he had kept his tongue blissfully silent, holding the burden of her fears and insecurities upon his humbly-bowed head. He had slipped into her heart without a breath of warning, leaving her stumbling and struck dumb by how quickly she’d grown fond of him. Friendship in a place she had not expected, allegiance in the crooks and corners of shadows. Pack as Alice would call them all. For Hotaru loved her family, her herd, even with their machinations and conspiracies. Even with the violence in their hearts and the blood upon their souls, she loved them. She had vowed to protect them the moment her fingers had clasped that bloodied crown, to die only in serving them and ensure that under her rule, they would want for nothing their greedy and immoral hearts desired. So was the chain of the royals, and yet here she stood, forcing pain upon the body of her subject.
 
Her friend, the importance of which was not lost on her for how few she had.
 
When he crumpled, as surely as a blade to the back of his neck, she felt her heart fall with him. No force could have held her as she raced to his side, sliding immediately to her knees in a way that scraped at them. It was the smallest of paybacks for the pain she’d inflicted, and her tears bubbled over in the worst sob as she saw the tears wetting his cheeks. His nose touched against the soft, vulnerable side of her throat, and her grief was expelled in a sharp, feminine wail of distress. She threw her neck over his withers, crying messily and rocking against him, wondering where she found the strength and passion to hate herself with such virility.
 
“Never make me do that again,” was cried into his bloodied skin, her own form shaking with the force of her despair. Every Queen had a downfall, after all. Perhaps he was hers. 

Ashamin the haruspex found it difficult to breathe. A sort of shock set into him, numbing his senses and paralyzing every function within his body. When he looked up (for he could not move his gaze from where it had hopefully flicked, skyward) he felt a dread of loneliness. In the moments after the attack and before Hotaru's shadow crossed his wounds, Ashamin felt so terribly alone. In those moments his pain felt solitary, self-inflicted, and incurable.

Time, though, would someday come to an end. For now this small series of shocks, this steady drip of blood, was soothed by the lady Hotaru and her sorrow. But the comfort of her body against his was short lived, for the words that fell from her lips were a declaration of something Ashamin understood better than most.

In an attempt to do the honorable thing, to help those in his herd and take their pain himself, he had hurt Hotaru. The sobs that ran through her, the tears that fell from her face and onto his injuries... were these not the cries of the wounded?

Ashamin, were he able to move, would have pushed Hotaru away. She didn't want to do that again? No, what she didn't want was for him to make her. He had made her do this, had commanded of her a pain so intense that perhaps her hurt was far deeper than his. Ashamin knew that as heavy as the physical pain was now, it would heal. He would, in time, stand tall again.

Hotaru was strong, or at least Ashamin had always seen her that way. But now? What had he reduced his lady to? He had hurt her so much, wounded her in ways he had not thought imaginable. So it seemed that the Moon Goddess had won, after all.

Ashamin flexed his jaw, grunted and stirred beneath the rosenshade. She didn't want him to hurt her anymore? Then he wouldn't. Slowly, painfully, Ashamin lifted himself. A hind hoof slipped in blood, his teeth ground, but he did not give in until somehow, somehow, he was standing. The shock was lifted, his warrior's spirit rose in him like a white flag. This, whatever this was, was over.

"I promise, Hotaru," Ashamin said through clenched teeth and tears. "I will never hurt you again."

With those words the haruspex turned to leave her, his tail dragging broken behind him and his gait awkwardly hindered. Were it not for his warrior's spirit, for the control he had trained to burn in himself, he would have been forever at her mercy. But Ashamin knew this was not how he could live any longer. He could not, would not, allow himself to cause pain like this to the ones that he loved. He was no one's liability; he would be their protector.

As he dragged himself down the slopes and shelves, stumbling down the last of the way and at last crumbling at the mountain's base, Ashamin thought about pain.

""

ASHAMIN